All Entries in the "Paralegal Tips" Category
Getting Ethical With Paralegals
Since the birth of the paralegal profession in the 1960s, it has evolved into an essential component of every successful legal team. The role of a paralegal is fundamentally shaped by the legal ethics that he or she must follow. When considering the ethical use of a paralegal, one criteria is to determine whether the [...]
Environmental Law Offers New Opportunity for Paralegals
Mother Nature has a unique but simple way of taking care of herself—a sort of “no BS” attitude towards unnatural manipulation that has routinely come back to bite many people and corporations where it hurts. At the beginning of December, the EPA released a report saying that Monsanto’s program for monitoring suspected cases of resistance [...]
FRCP Readiness: 10 Practical Tips for Paralegals
The amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP)[1] place a tremendous amount of responsibility on parties to meet and confer to identify and resolve issues related to the preservation and production of electronically stored information. The rules also reinforce the notion that lawyers must communicate with their clients to become familiar with their clients electronic [...]
Witness Statements
It is important to memorialize the sequence of events in any given incident. One way to accomplish this is to obtain statements from the percipient witnesses. Nailing down a witness’ version of how an incident occurred early in a case can be one of the most important components of a thorough investigation. A paralegal should [...]
How to Create a Discovery Plan
Attorneys devote an enormous amount of time on the discovery phase of litigation. The California Civil Discovery Act encompasses California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 2016.010 – 2036.050. California Code of Civil Procedure § 2019.010 outlines the methods of discovery as oral and written depositions; interrogatories; inspections of documents, things, and places; physical and mental [...]
Practical Pointers for Trial Binders
I haven’t met a litigation trial lawyer yet that doesn’t use trial binders. In fact, binderizing a complex case from the date of inception is a great way to help your attorney stay organized. What are trial binders? A trial binder is a binder where various documents are organized, properly tabbed, and indexed at the [...]
Protecting Privileges When Doing Online Research
“The commercial tracking of online legal research is a growing threat to the three confidentiality interests relating to legal representation. Attorney-client privilege, attorney work-product protection, and an attorney’s ethical rule of confidentiality are bedrock principles for the United States justice system and for the practice of law. The rapid expansion in data tracking technologies, decreasing [...]
How to Prepare a Personal Injury Settlement Brochure
This excellent guide was posted by our friends over at Personal Injury Utah and we wanted to share it here as well. Thoroughness is the key when preparing a settlement brochure or demand package to attempt settlement of an injury case. Here are 32 tips gleaned from over 20 years experience that comprise a checklist [...]
How a Paralegal at Microsoft Uses Access 2010 Web Databases
Meet Malori! Malori is a paralegal in Microsoft’s legal department. She manages patent applications and assigns them out to attorneys and portfolio managers as well as other paralegals. Malori was looking for a way to make her team more efficient by presenting all of the information they needed in a single web page or application. [...]
Paralegal Tip: Employment Outlook
In this video Paralegal Tip, we respond to a Paralegal student (Harold) who would like our opinion on the Paralegal job outlook in the next few years.
Paralegal Tip: Paralegal and State Bar Certification
In this video Paralegal Tip we respond to a PA Paralegal who asked us, “Can a Paralegal become certified by their State Bar Association.”
Paralegal Tip: Gathering Computer-Based Discovery
This helpful Paralegal video discusses tips for gathering computer-based discovery.
Paralegals Beware: Storefront Legal Organizations
Contributed by Jeannie S. Johnston** After sixteen plus years working in the legal profession I, like so many others, have enjoyed bonding with my colleagues. We truly have become family and it has been a joy to watch each other grow and succeed. Not only do we share professional bonds but through online communities, we [...]
